Solstice
by Signs of Dusk
Summary: Seven children are brought together when they are chosen to partake in what they had presumed to be a competition for the highly popular social networking game known as Prodigious. Little do any of them know that there is more to this game than what there appears to be and that the fate of two worlds rests on their shoulders. AU


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Digimon.

Ch. 1

"_Hard though it may be to accept, remember that guilt is sometimes a friendly internal voice reminding you that you're messing up."_

_-Marge Kennedy_

Taichi Kamiya—or Tai as he preferred to be called—was your average sixteen-year-old. He made decent grades, had a couple of close friends, and for the most part kept to himself. If it weren't for his exceptional soccer skills, Tai figured he might as well have gone unnoticed for the remainder of his high school career. Not that he cared, for there were always better things to do than figure out ways of climbing up the social ladder.

There might've been a time where he cared to be in the spotlight of social conformity, but as it were, that ship had sailed. That social butterfly of a preteen had since buckled down to a much more serious young man for reasons that he tended to keep to himself, his guilt having not yet left his conscience alone. It's funny how the circumstances that are typically beyond your control are the ones that force you to grow up.

It was the end of the school day, a thing that Tai had been anticipating with gut-gnawing anxiousness. As soon as that bell rang, he was up out of his seat and rushing out the door. Most would think this was because of the jittering need to escape all that school represented, but that was not the case. His need was much dire and far less petty.

He was out the front entrance in record time, no one bothering to go up to him to chat. The few friends he still had left after Tai's sudden change in demeanor stayed well out of his way, not fully aware of what was going on but conscience of the fact that it had to be important. Tai was grateful for that, knowing that he was neglecting his friendships as of late and they had a patience of mind to be understanding.

He just wondered vaguely how much longer it would take before his callousness drove them away as well. Even with a heavy heart, it startled him a bit to find that he really didn't care. Friendships were fleeting. Siblings were not.

Hopping onto his bike after he had removed the chain and stuffed it away in his satchel, Tai pedaled as fast as he could, almost gliding across the concrete as he zoomed away from school. People walking along the sidewalk immediately moved away, some exclaiming their surprise while others voiced their vehement complaints. Quick apologies streamed from Tai's mouth as he swerved out of the way of oncoming people several times, though he never really had much care for what he said.

He made it to his destination in roughly about twenty minutes. The need for haste diminished significantly then, and Tai's face grew solemn as he slowed down and came to an eventual stop in front of an expansive building where the bricks were colored in a combination of muted white and dark brown.

He stared up at the hospital. It was a sight that he had, quite unfortunately, gotten used to seeing.

It was relatively subdued and calm today on a late afternoon in the beginnings of winter. Tai found himself to be the only person outside, if one were to exclude the few EMTs and paramedics that went about doing their business.

Leaving his bike at the provided metal rack, the adolescent made his way through the front entrance, went straight and took a left for the elevators. He made it to the third floor in moments, going over to the desk to sign in.

The nurse manning the station glanced briefly at him, returning her eyes to the paper work she was dealing with soon after. She didn't need to question him about whom he was or where he was going. She already knew.

Tai leisurely walked over to the room at the end of the hall on the right, shouldering his bag and schooling his expression so that when he opened the door, a brilliant smile lit up his face. His eyes fell upon a small girl sitting propped up by a couple of well-stuffed pillows on a large hospital bed. Exhaustion was in her downcast features, her eyes focused on the television set situated in the far right corner. As soon as she noticed Tai though, her auburn eyes grew wide with thrill.

"Tai!" his sister exclaimed, the joy lighting up her face so vividly that Tai almost wanted to cry from the guilt that suddenly racked his chest.

Tai looked back at his sister, Hikari Kamiya, or Kari for short. She looked so small, so fragile sitting up in the hospital bed, face still pale from exhaustion. A sort of wheezing sound rattled in her chest whenever she breathed, the raspy noise causing him to inwardly cringe.

Even with the tubes inserted into her noise, was she getting enough oxygen? He would have to ask the doctor about it later.

In spite of this though, Tai still managed to maintain a brave face as he chuckled and took a seat at the bedside chair.

"Looks like someone missed their big brother!" he said affectionately as he ruffled her hair in a manner he knew annoyed her.

Kari swatted his hand away, ducking forward and struggling to smooth out the resulting frizz that her brother's hand had stirred up. "C'mon Tai! How many times do I have to tell you to quit doing that? I'm thirteen, I'm not a kid anymore!" she whined, pouting at him.

"Doesn't matter how old you get, you'll always be my little sister. And unfortunately, it's kind of my birthright to mess up your hair." He leaned forward with his hand posed suggestively, a wicked grin growing slowly across his lips. Kari gave a mild shriek, shrinking away out of his reach.

Egged on by her reaction, Tai continued his attempts until he himself was practically on her bed and Kari was squirming all around as much at the tubes and wires would allow her. Not before long both broke out into giggles, and for a moment it felt as though the two were young children again, having just seen or done something that was beyond hilarious. Back when such youth sheltered you from the cruel realities that seemed to run rampant all around you, especially when you weren't paying close attention to them.

Oblivious because of their laughter, neither sibling notice the door open and someone enter until the person discreetly cleared their throat.

"Did I, uh, miss something?"

Tai and Kari looked up, their expressions freezing momentarily to take in the new visitor. This pause didn't last long, for it was only Davis Motomiya, a friend of Kari's from school. Tai trusted the boy well enough to act like a complete fool around him.

"Hey, Davis." Tai greeted amicably as he moved off of the bed and into the chair he had previously been sitting in. Puzzlement soon took over his features as he asked, "What are you doing here?"

Davis grew red in the face, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. "Ah, I was just worried Kari might be lonely, is all. I wasn't sure if you'd be busy with soccer practice today."

Tai couldn't keep himself from smirking, glancing at his sister to see her looking at her lap with unfathomable interest. It was clear to both the Kamiya siblings that Davis had just about the biggest crush on the younger Kamiya.

The knowledge of this had initially placed Tai on edge, especially when Davis began to visit his sister in the hospital unannounced, but after inquiring from Kari on the matter, he learned that she in no way reciprocated his feelings. In a sense, Tai felt relieved, seeing as how this was his baby sister after all and it was his job as her older brother to fend off potential boyfriends, but he still felt a bit saddened for the poor Davis. He was so blinded by his infatuation for Kari that he didn't seem to realize that she didn't feel the same way for him. And if he did, well, then he didn't really care.

Leaning back in his chair with his arms folded behind his head, Tai looked up at the ceiling as he replied, "Nah…practice was cancelled." Despondence came to his face and Tai was grateful that neither Davis nor Kari could see it with his head tilted so far back.

He didn't enjoy lying, didn't even enjoy the fact that he was skipping out on practice. But he didn't want after school activities to get in the way of him spending time with his sister and making sure she was well. It had in the past, and as a result of that he had done something undeniably stupid and exceedingly selfish. If he hadn't, none of them would be here now in the hospital.

With Davis supplementing easy distraction, Tai chose to become a distant spectator, keeping an eye on the younger teens as he went about doing his homework. After a while though, just as he was growing tired of figuring out how to solve this particular algebra problem, Kari turned to him and asked, "Say, Tai. Did you happen to bring your laptop with you?"

Wordlessly Tai pulled over his satchel and retrieved the object in question, eliciting an enthused smile as he moved to pass it to her and Davis. She took it eagerly and turned it on, resting it on her lap and beckoning Davis to move closer. The boy scooted his chair over, his elbows propped up on his knees as he began fiddling with his phone.

"What level are you at?" Davis asked slowly, his fingers moving across his phone's keyboard rapidly.

"Twenty-something, I think…" Kari replied, gazing at the screen as she clicked on the icon named Prodigious and a game menu popped up.

"Yeah? Well I'm at level thirty!" boasted Davis, grinning brightly at his friend.

Kari rolled her eyes, not bothering to give a reply to his priding remark. She concentrated on logging in, immediately greeted by the stats and character information of her avatar, which, in Prodigious, were commonly referred to as digimon.

Tai snorted, amused by the pair's total engrossment in the popular social-networking game and Davis's apparent assumption that being at level thirty made you a superior player. He knew for a fact that Davis still had a little ways to go before he was even close to being a competent player

Prodigious was a new and popular online game that could utilize the functions of other social networking sites created by a company known as Hypnos. Players were assigned to monsters called digimon through a combination of a survey that was taken when a person signed up and random selection. Each digimon was a part of one of ten factions: fire, light, thunder, wind, ice, steel, earth, wood, water, and darkness. Each faction in turn was governed by powerful digimon known in the game as Legendary Warriors.

The purpose of the game was for players to go on various missions presented to them through exploration that helped increase the stats of their originally low-leveled digimon so that they may earn better abilities and possible transformations referred to as digivolution.

Digivolvution was a temporary mechanic that lasted for only a limited amount of time but provided much stronger attacks that could be very useful in difficult battles. The higher the level a digimon was, the higher it could digivolve. So far, the highest stage in digivolution a player could get to was the ultimate, and that was when the digimon was around level fifty-to-sixty. There was only speculation as to whether or not a digimon could evolve to an even higher stage. If you could, no one had achieved it yet.

The only reason Tai knew any of this because he was a player himself. Not that he would ever speak of it, because he had often teased his sister for wanting to play what he had originally deemed a silly game. But that was back before he had bought the game for her, before she wound up here in the hospital, before he ended up playing it himself to pass the time those first few crucial days when Kari's life still hung in the balance.

And the funny thing about it was that he was actually good. Not mediocre, not novice, plain good. His own digimon, an Agumon, was already at level fifty-three after only four days of playing. Tai couldn't explain why he had taken to the game so well or why he was still mildly addicted to it. All that he knew was that he was good and it was fun.

So long as nobody knew that he played Prodigious—because he found it to be such a childish thing to have as a secret pleasure—then he was good. The last thing he needed was for Kari to get on his case for making fun of her for the longest time about wanting to play the game when he ended up playing the game himself.

He and Davis stayed until visiting hours were up. Kari sat against her pile of pillows, face heavy with exhaustion and sadness. "You'll be back tomorrow, won't you Tai?" she asked, eyeing her brother with eyes glossy with unshed tears.

Tai smiled to his sister as he replied, "Of course I will."

"Hey! What about me?!" Davis inquired boisterously, grinning broadly down at his friend. "I can come back too, right Kari?"

Kari chuckled, rolling her eyes and shaking her head slowly. "Yes, Davis, you can come by tomorrow too. That is, if you aren't afraid of losing to me in another battle again."

"Who's to say I didn't let you win on purpose?" he posed keenly, his claim unable to deceive anyone when he was unable to smother his initial grin in order to appear serious.

Tai shoved the younger boy playful, fighting back laughter as Davis stumbled and Kari giggled. "Come on bonehead, we've got to go." Tai turned back to his sister so that he could bend down and plant a kiss to her forehead. He ran a hand through her soft hair affectionately, trying not to let himself feel the unnecessary guilt of having to leave her.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he assured one final time before physically forcing himself to leave the room.

He and Davis left the hospital in silence, walking out to the bike rack to retrieve their bicycles. It wasn't until he had gotten his unchained that Davis said anything, and even then it sound as though he was talking to himself.

"She looked better today."

Tai paused only momentarily, pulling his bike out slowly once he recovered. "Yeah…"

"How much longer do you think she'll be in there?" inquired Davis, adding almost hastily, "Some of us were just wondering. It's been, what, a week, almost two?"

"I don't know," Tai growled, irritated by the younger boy's honestly heartfelt curiosity. It only made him feel guiltier, reminding him that if wasn't for him, she might've been better by now.

Davis didn't take much offense to Tai's strained tone, nodding his head almost absently. "Alright," he said and pedaled away.

Tai exhaled slowly through his nose, taking the time to walk his bike out for a few blocks before he too rode off, all the while dreading the evitable of having to go home.

* * *

Within the headquarters of Hypnos, a young Marcus Damon sat leisurely in one of the chairs in front of the computer monitors, staring at the screen with a petulant look of boredom. The place was dark, lit up only by blue light from dozens of unoccupied computer screens. He and his father were the only ones there in the computer lab.

"Tell me again," he drawled. "What exactly are we looking for?"

The teen's father glanced at his son with mild amusement, turning back to his own screen as he answered, "We've been receiving reports that a virus has erupted through the system. It's our job to find its source."

Marcus sighed, slouching further down his seat. "Why don't you have one of the proxy dweebs go searching for it? I'm sure they'd have a better job at it than we would, given that, you know, they're actually there."

"They're already on the case," the man mumbled distractedly, fingers flying across the keys with deliberate strokes. "Besides…it doesn't hurt to have a pair of eyes looking in from the outside."

"And I'm here because…?"

"To keep me company of course!" he smiled smugly at his son, who in turn scowled back at him.

Marcus pushed out of his chair, snagging his duffel bag from off the floor. He shifted it onto his shoulder and started walking away, remarking flippantly, "I think I'm going to leave this to you Pops. Chances are you won't even need my help—"

His words were interrupted by the sudden blare of alarms coming from all the monitors, a red light flashing through the darkness. Marcus stilled instantly, turning to peer over his shoulder back at his father. He noticed the way the man sat tense in his seat, fingers momentarily stilled over the keys.

"Dad, what's wrong?" he asked, all prior annoyance gone as he took note of the seriousness of the situation. When the man didn't answer, he rushed over to where his father sat, leaning over him to look at the screen. "Did Takuya and the others find the problem?"

"I—"

Darkness fell upon them inexplicably, blanketing them in irrepressible silence. The hairs on the back of Marcus's neck stood on in as he looked all about the rows of computer monitors with vacant seats, all of them once on moments before. A growl rumbled in the back of his throat as he prepared himself for some kind of confrontation to occur, but he couldn't quite prepare himself for the distressed screams that carried from down the hall to their right.

"The children!" Marcus's father sprung to his feet and rushed away, Marcus quick on his heels.

Some of the other employees that were still in the building peered out of their offices curiously at the sound of distress, a few actually joining Marcus and his father to assess the situation. They made it down the hall flying, pushing into the room where the cries were coming from.

Marcus peered in, able to see the bodies of six children strain against the seats they were hooked up to, screaming in pain and fear and generally unaware of where they were. He almost felt sick when one of them—he couldn't exactly say who, but it was one of the twins—grew quiet and sagged into his chair while the others continued to struggle. It didn't look like he was breathing.

"Get back, Marcus!" his father ordered, shoving the teen out of the way. Marcus stumbled, watching numbly as the other employees flooded into the room, surrounding the children that were linked to the so called game that went by the name of Prodigious.

He turned away, leaning his back onto the wall to slowly sink to the floor. A strained breath passed his lips slowly as he struggled not to pay attention to the screams of the younger children in the next room. He tried distracting himself by pulling out his Data Link Digivice from his back pocket, hoping to speak with his partner. It startled him a bit to find the screen overwhelmed by static, disrupting the image of his crass yet loyal Agumon.

"W-What's…going on…?" he questioned aloud, stiffening back into the wall when the screen fell black and words flashed green in repeated succession.

Who am I?

* * *

**Author's Note: I was inspired in part by Summer Wars and Our War Game. You may see some parallels from the two films in this story, but I'm not going to be outright copying them. **

**Forgive me if I am and should get characters' personalities wrong. I've been steadily re-watching the various Digimon seasons, just to get in touch with who the characters were. The only season I haven't watched (excluding the recent ones past the Data Squad season) outside a few episodes is the Tamers season, so I don't know if they'll appear in this. Maybe make a few cameos, but we'll see.**

**Hopefully you enjoyed and anxious to learn more! Please review/favorite/follow! **


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